A Via Rail train from Vancouver arrived in Toronto Saturday morning after a health scare in northern Ontario.

For more than 10 hours on Friday, the train with 294 people without ceasing board was quarantined in the village of Foleyet, 100 kilometres southwest of Timmins, after an 86-year-old female passenger died.

In addition, some ill passenger was flown to a Timmins hospital by respiratory problems and five others on the train developed flu-like symptoms.

Officials say the six don’t have an infectious disease and the events that led to the quarantine were unfortunate coincidences.

Ontario’s acting chief medical officer, Dr. David Williams, reported there was that may be liked no connection between the abrupt exit of the woman set in a washroom and other passengers falling ill.

“It happened to be [the] confluence of three [separate events] at the same time,” Williams said Friday at a tidings conference in Toronto.

But health officials athwart the country were praising the quick reverse action of emergency answer teams, hailing it as a sign the system is working after lessons learned from the 2005 SARS outbreak.

Ontario officials utter the woman found dead in a washroom on the train may have died of a heart attack. The doctor on the suite who found the woman had earlier been notified about her deteriorating health.

But earlier in the day, authorities said whole they knew was that one woman seemingly healthy one moment was dead the next and that a group, including tourists from Australia who might have passed through Asia, was sick.

Fears of Avian flu: officials

“Given that there’s still H5N1 [avian influenza] and while we haven’t seen much person-to-person spread, one person mortal and another somebody requiring airlifting and a bunch of other people sick, that kind of throws up more live flags, ” said Dr. David Butler-Jones, Canada’s chief society freedom from disease officer, in an interview with Canadian Press.

Health officials over the country were pleased through the mode the incident was handled.

British Columbia’s chief medical health officer, Dr. Perry Kendall, said public health officials thwart the country linked into parley calls to dividend information quickly.

“Had we had that high level of suspicion in Toronto, for example, at the beginning of SARS, they may not accept had the amount to of cases they subsequently had,” he said.

Auditor General Sheila Fraser, has been critical of provinces outside of Ontario for not moving to a greater degree quickly to develop formalized systems to distribution through public freedom from disease emergencies.

But Kendall aforesaid this circumstance shows that there is still the will to work together when such emergencies happen.

He said Canada is spending $135 million on a computer system to allow each province and territory to share intelligence in the event of an outbreak.

At Union Station Saturday morning, passengers related they were a little weary, but in good spirits and looking forward to their vacations or visits with relatives.

Via Rail has crisis counselors on hand concerning its staff on the trail if they want them. The train determination now continue on to Halifax.

With files from the Canadian Press